Watch David Lynch coach Laura Palmer on ‘Twin Peaks’ backwards-talk

“Repooc tnega olleh.”

Try saying that line with feeling. (Translation: “Hello Agent Cooper,” but … backwards.)

The unsettlingly surreal rewind-speak of the Black Lodge residents in Twin Peaks has always been something of a special skill for David Lynch’s actors. It’s a process: First they speak the line forwards, listen to the backwards playback and then repeat it, no matter how inhumanly tongue-twisted those sounds may turn out to be.

The backwards-spoken line is then itself rewound in the playback, revealing the spooky inflections specific to the Red Room.

More about Television, Twin Peaks, David Lynch, Sheryl Lee, and The Red Room